Institute for Replication

About

The Institute for Replication (I4R) works to improve the credibility of science by systematically reproducing and replicating research findings in leading academic journals. Our team collaborates with researchers to:

Reproductions and Replications: Promote and generate reproductions and replications. Establish an open access website to serve as a central repository containing the replications, responses by the original authors and documentation.
Replication Resources: Prepare standardized file structure, code and documentation aimed at facilitating reproducibility and replicability by the broader community.
Teaching Resources: Develop and provide access to educational material on replication and open science.
Dissemination: Help researchers disseminate and publish reproductions and replications.

Aim and scope

Reproducibility and replicability are key to the credibility and confidence in research findings. Reproductions and replications allow to assess which findings are robust, making science a self-correcting system, with major downstream effects on policy-making. Despite these benefits, reproducibility and replicability rates are surprisingly low, and direct replications rarely published. Addressing these challenges requires innovative approaches in how we conduct, reward, and communicate the outcomes of reproductions and replications.

Our primary goal is to promote and generate reproductions and replications. Reproductions and replications may be achieved using the same or different data and procedures/codes. While I4R is not a journal, we have an editorial board which actively recruits and selects replicators. We currently have an editorial board for economics and finance, and for political science. Our scope will evolve and expand over time, and we will be adding other disciplines on Sept. 1st, 2023.

What's new?

We have more than 200 ongoing or completed replications! We will be writing our first meta paper combing replications this Summer 2023.
Research using non-public data is a formidable barrier for I4R - so we are offering up to 5000 USD (and coauthorship to our second meta-paper) for an eligible replication. See details here.
The February 2023 I4R Newsletter is available here
We are organizing replication games. See here for upcoming events and here for a description.
Our collaborators have put together a template README for social science replication packages: https://social-science-data-editors.github.io/template_README/.
We are working with journal editors to put together special issues or symposiums dedicated to replications. Please reach out to us if you are interested in replications.